In academia today, English language enjoys an unofficial authority, mainly because most major journals are based in Western countries and publish in English. In such a situation, it is easy to forget that English speakers actually form less than half of the world’s population, and a majority of those are non-native speakers. Indeed, for many researchers and PhD students, getting published in English language journals is seen as challenging.

However, research does not, and indeed should not need language barriers. Luckily, there are a plethora of resources available to make sure that you can brush up your language in order to convey your research through English language journals, and the most fundamental, and yet essential resource for this is a dictionary.

Most people use a dictionary to look up the meanings of unfamiliar words, but dictionaries can be used for other purposes too. A dictionary is actually a multi-purpose tool, much like the Swiss Army knife, and is available in many diverse versions to suit different needs of users.

Here are some common categories of word-related information available from a dictionary:

1. Meaning: As mentioned before,